Sleeping Dogs Lie

Elsie

"Joe?" The call came again. A short, hunched figure hobbled into view, through the gap in the Hawthorn hedge bordering the field Joe was camping in, and stopped to wave a walking stick in the air as a greeting.

"Elsie, love," Joe shouted and jogged towards her.

Elsie Baker continued onwards again, leaning hard on her stick. The entrance to her field was muddy and churned up by the passage of Joe's pickup truck. It would be easy to slip and fall and at her age that could be very serious. Joe got to her and took her other arm to steady her as they walked the short distance to his caravan. She was wrapped in a voluminous beige coat, done up with big buttons that were easier for old hands to deal with. Her white hair was thin. The light evening breeze had no trouble blowing wisps of it about as they walked.

"Hello, Joe," Elsie said with a smile, blinking her myopic eyes from their deep nest of wrinkles. "Just give me a minute to get my breath back."

"You take it easy, girl," Joe replied. He had an accent now, some odd mixture of Cornish and West Country.

To fill the gap in the conversation while Elsie gasped for air, Joe addressed the dog again. "Look who it is, Digger. It's Elsie. You're always pleased to see Elsie, ain't yer, fella?"

Digger already had his eyes locked on Elsie and a 'thump, thump, thump' echoed from the depths of the cardboard box as his wagging tail rebounded off the sides. Digger was indeed always happy to see Elsie because Elsie always had a treat for Digger, either in the purse slung over her forearm or in one of the pockets of her coat. On cue, Elsie reached into one deep pocket and pulled out a hard biscuit in the shape of a bone.

"Hello, Digger. Are you well?" she greeted the dog formally between breaths.

Elsie threw the bone shaped biscuit towards the dog. He caught it with a flick of his head, without moving from his box, and set to demolishing it in loud, crunching bites.

"His 'ips are playing up again," Joe replied for the dog. "It's the cold an' the wet, plays merry hell with his arthritis."

"You and me both, Digger," the old lady said with empathy.

"I've tol' you before, Elsie, you don't have to keep comin' over here on every whim an' errand. You'll do yourself an injury at this rate."

"Well, I only came to say-"

"We already know," interrupted Joe. "Ted, Nancy and Gladys are comin' tonight, as usual, an' Miss Smith phoned to say she's comin' too an' maybe bringin' a friend. Arthur's already told us."

"Arthur," Elsie said, looking around for the aforementioned gentleman. "Is he here now?"

"You know Arthur, Elsie, love. He ain't never far away but ain't 'ere right this minute."

"Oh," she replied, sounding disappointed. The unapparent Arthur was Elsie's husband. They'd been childhood sweethearts, married young, living together in the cottage across the road from the field. They'd never known a world outside this place, barely venturing further than the next town. They had everything they could ever want right here, Elsie would often tell Joe.

"Come on, girl." Joe said, gently turning the old lady around. "I'll walk you back to the road, I'll 'ave a bit of tea an' then I'll be over."

"You know, Joe, you're more than welcome to come and have dinner at the house, and Digger too," Elsie said as they walked away from the caravan.

"It's beans en solitaire for me tonight, seein' as I just burnt the toast an' all, but I ain't puttin' you to no trouble so put it out of yer 'ead," Joe told her.

Joe had been up to the house for dinner with Elsie once before, soon after Digger and he first arrived, and once was enough. Elsie was probably the worst cook he'd ever met. She cooked vegetables until they were a uniform yellow color with the consistency of wet tissue paper and she cooked meat until it was as dried and tough as old leather. Joe sometimes wondered why Elsie hadn't starved to death on her own cooking. If Arthur wasn't already dead, her cooking would've killed him.

Joe saw Elsie across the road and then slipped back across the mud to his caravan and to Digger.

"It looks like the nosey Miss Smith isn't giving up, Digger." The accent was gone again. Joe knelt down and rubbed Digger behind the ear, the way the old dog liked it, and was rewarded by the thump of tail on box. He was lost in a thought for a moment, scratching Digger's ear, when a new acrid smell assaulted his senses.

"Bugger! Now my beans are burning," Joe cried, leaping into the caravan to try and rescue what was left of his dinner.